


In control

by magpie_03



Series: A hole in the earth [1]
Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Anorexia, Bulimia, Depression, Dysfunctional Family, Eating Disorders, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Loneliness, The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie (reference)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 18:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21150368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie_03/pseuds/magpie_03
Summary: A Mr Robot eating disorders AU. Trigger warnings apply. Please don't read if stories about eating disorders make you feel unsafe. Take care.





	In control

Elliot and Angela are 15 when they meet again. The local hospital never meant much to Elliot. He's been there once, in the ER, when he broke his arm. "My dad pushed me out of the window," is what he remembers, as if it's a sentence in a foreign language text book instead of a memory. The syllables roll of his tongue when doctors inquire about it, it always comes up because that visit and the possibility of child abuse is on his medical record. That doctor in the ER so many years ago knew, he didn't have to make assumptions.

  
It's different now. The doctors make assumptions. Elliot knows, he knows it inside out. The doctors, the hospitals, and his illness. Hospital means something different now. He wish he could say it's his second home but that would be insulting, even for the hospital.

  
It's his third hospital admission. This time it's the pediatric ward for internal medicine or, as he secretly likes to call it, the eating disorder ghetto. There's almost always a kid with an eaiting disorder on this ward since the waiting lists for specialized eating disorder clinics are long, too long, and the psychiatric ward won't treat you if you're condition is critical and needs constant medical supervision. Meal plans. Feeding tubes. IVs. Smearing butter into napkins, into your PJs or into hair if it's long enough. Hiding sandwiches in your sleeves. Playing with food, spreading it out on the plate, making it look like you've eaten even though not a single bite went down your throat. Wearing layers and layers of clothing to hide your body. Walking, standing, anything to satisfy the urge to move because not burning calories is scarier than the thought of collapsing. Everytime Elliot sees another kid like him on the ward his stomach clenches. It hurts everything inside him to see other people in the throes of an eating disorder. But when he looks at himself, all he can see is _fat_ and _ugly_ when all he wants to see is _nothing._

  
Elliot is no stranger here.

  
Nurses locking bathrooms to prevent purging because no matter how far you've gone, you can always go further. This is Elliot's third hospital admission and in lieu of hacking other people's lives - he has no access to a computer - he resorts to observing them, the others. Patients with his condition. He sees a whole world, an entire life shrunk to a hospital room. A room without a view. Faulty hospital architecture. Or just your own head.

  
You can see the pain, the loneliness. You don't need to read emails for that. All you need to do is to lie awake at night and listen to the muffled crying that's coming from the room at the other end of the hall.

  
Elliot is no stranger here and yet everytime he's back it's like the first time. He wanted to save the others, wanted to help them, but his hands were tied. Restrained, so he wouldn't pull out his feeding tube.

  
Elliot's no stranger to his illness. As soon as his weight fell below the mark the pediatrician and his therapist agreed on as part of his outpatient treatment Elliot was readmitted to the med-peds ward. There's no way he could have manipulated his health records this time. The nurses who weighed him wrote the number into his file with a pen that scratches over the paper like an itch he can't get rid of. Good old analog medicine. As if he didn't know his weight. Over the past few months the number dropped, steadily, just like the temperature outside, despite the gallons of ice-water Elliot drank on an empty stomach before each appointment. But the numbers kept dropping and so his body became a weather forecast of its own. Foggy mind. Heart palpitations that feel like raindrops beating against your bones. Blue lips and nails. There's an entire ocean inside of you and you're drowning with every breath.

  
You're always cold these days. Goosebumps aren't enough when your body believes it's dying. "You've got fur, just like a bear" Darlene joked as she saw the light, soft hair on his arms. It was a shitty joke, she did it to hide the tears in her voice. She's right, though. He's caving in. His body is preparing for the big sleep.

  
Elliot spends a lot of time in front of the big mirror in the hallway of his mom's apartment. He's taking a picture of his body every morning, on an empty stomach. Just to be sure the scales aren't lying. Just to be safe. He has a lot of pictures of his body on his phone. He can't tell when he took them, he's losing more and more time. He's blacking out. But he can always tell his BMI, on each and every photo. This is his illness talking, his anorexia talking, he knows it and yet he can't stop. He spends hours scrolling through the images on his phone. Looking, comparing, looking some more. Other people thumb through photo album to dwell on memories. Elliot scrolls through his phone to dwell on his own death.  
BMI 19. That was after his last hospital appointment. It took months to get there, he had a tube in for most of the time even as he ate again because his metabolism was all messed up. When he gout out he, just for the briefest of moments, felt healthy again. He can't remember what that feels like now. All he remembers is

  
18.9. 18.8. 18.6 18.5. 18.4. 18.3. 18.2. 18.1. 18.0

  
17.9. 17.8. 17.6. 17.5. 17.4. 17.3. 17.2.17.1. 17.0

  
16.9. 16.8. 16.7. 16.6. 16.5. 16.4. 16.3.16.2. 16.1. 16.0

  
15.9. 15.8. 15.7. 15.6. 15.5. 15.4. 15.3. 15.2. 15.1. 15.0

  
14.9. 14.8. 14.7. 14.6. 14.5. 14.4. 14.3. 14.2. 14.1. 14.0

  
The programmatic expression of his will. He's been stuck on 14 for a while now. Something bugs him about that number. It scratches that part of his mind that doesn't allow good to exist without a condition. 14 is low. 13 is even lower.

  
"I'm afraid I can't treat Elliot in our outpatient program anymore," the doctor explained during the last appointment. Elliot knows the look the doctor gave him right. You know what this is about. Don't you dare think I don't know that you've been lying to me.

  
His mom responds as usual, treating Elliot as if he was a pair of shoes she can't return to the store. "What? Why? It's only been three months."

  
"Elliot's weight dropped again. It's our responsibility to make sure Elliot's condition doesn't become critical again and right now, he's at the edge. He needs to be readmitted."

  
Critical. Elliot knows what that means. Last time, he was a critical. Last time, his roommate was betting money on whether or not he would survive the night. Last time, the doctor came into the room in the morning and said "you know, when I drove back home last night I really had my doubts that I would find you still alive today.

His mom huffs. She doesn't know anything about this. She wasn't there.

The doctor raises his eyebrows as he explains. He probably expected a different reaction, doctors always do. Elliot has seen them on the med-peds ward, the parents who are over-vigilant, over-protective, crying with their kids. To put it mildly, his mom isn't the crying type or any other type. She's no mother. She's simply a woman who has two kids when she should have none.

  
Elliot zones out for the rest of the talk. He can see his mom gesticulating, her voice becoming louder. This is about money, hospital bills probably. Everytime his mom looks like she really cares about something it's about money. As always. The first thing she asked when Elliot fell out of the window is how much the cast costs. This is no different. He may be 8 years old again. He may have fallen out of a window again. He may have hit rock bottom again.

  
"We'll admit Elliot and once his weight is stabilized we can take it from there, okay?"

  
A genuine question. As if he is really interested. Elliot shrugs. He's become a statistic, a patient who keeps getting readmitted again and again and again. Revolving-door patient.

  
At least his mom accompanied him to the hospital this time, on the train, in the carriage Elliot believed to be the most dangerous one. He can’t say what he hates more, going to the hospital or going home. Last time and the time before he wouldn't go, arguing with his mother and, as nothing seemed to help, he resorted to yelling and locking himself inside his room because he wouldn't let them take away the one thing he has, the one thing that keeps him going even though it sends him tumbling down. His mom called the doctor who called an ambulance. In the end, he was escorted to the hospital, flanked by paramedics because he was a "danger to himself and others." Restrained on a gourney, loaded into an ambulance while his mother stood by, smoking her cigarette as usual. He was the neighborhood's talk for weeks.

  
He could talk about how the plastic restrains cut into his wrists and ankles. How the gourney was too hard, how lying on it made every bone inside his body hurt. He could talk about the fact that he could feel bruises on his upper arm form, right where the paramedics grabbed him. He could feel their looks. They were assessing him, probably comparing him to all the other anorexics they transported to the hospital. He could talk about how it ade him sick, feeling and seeing the paramedics' eyes all over his body. He knows what they're thinking._ You're too fat to have an eating disorder._ But he only thought about Darlene, hoping that she didn't see this.

  
Darlene hides it well. The screams of her brother echo in her ears during panic attacks, sometimes for hours on end. For once she's glad her brother is at the hospital so he doesn't have to see her like this.

  
Elliot doesn't recognize Angela when he first sees her. She's come a long way since they first met after his dad and her mom died because they worked at Evil Corp their whole lives. Not only did Evil Corp destroy their lives – it ripped their families apart, too. He remembers the lawyer, Antara Nayar, her dark eyes hefted on him and Darlene as she spoke to their mother. Even back then he mistook her sympathy for pity. He remembers her office, dark wood, carpet. Blinds on her door to allow for at least a little privacy even though the case against Evil Corp was all over the news. The bottle of alcohol she kept in drawer, the same bottle his mom kept hidden at home. Words flew over his head with no meaning. Right after his dad's death he and Darlene were thrown into the world of the adults, a world as confusing as the sadness Elliot felt tightening in his chest. He remembers Darlene's hand in his when they first met Angela. Blue eyes, blonde hair. A poster girl for perfection. You wouldn't think anything bad could ever happen to her.

  
Dark wood, foreign feelings, and the face of Susan Jacobs on TV, in the courtroom after Evil Corp was cleared of all accusations. Susan Jacobs laughed, she laughed them right into their faces as their entire world fell apart, and this is when Elliot decided never to be vulnerable again. He squeezed Darlene's hand as he fought not to cry. He vowed never to become prey again, not for Evil Corp, not for Susan Jacobs, and not for his mom who took out her anger on Darlene and him.

  
He grew up, right there and then, just as his world dwindled away to nothing. His mom sold his dad's car, that blue, beat-up Ford Mustang, so she could pay the bills for the lawyer and the funeral. They had to move into a smaller apartment because they couldn't afford the house where Darlene and he grew up in, where they made snowmans and called them Kevin McCallister. Where his Dad pushed him out of a window. The world changed and he couldn't keep up with it all. He cried and screamed into his pillow at night. He whispered "come back, dad, come back" at night to no one in particular. The universe answered in a harsh whisper.

  
_You're weak, just like your father. You're pathetic. You're nothing._

  
And nothing he became.

  
Elliot knew Angela was one of his people right when he saw her at the hospital. Her skinny body doesn't match her bloated, pale face. Calloused knuckles, chapped lips. Dry, brittle hair. She doesn't look anything like the little girl he met many years ago, someone who wasn't oblivious to what the world did to her and her family but oblivious to what she could do to herself and to her body.

  
He can see them walking around the hospital ward, slowly, because Angela has a heart monitor and needs to take it one step at a time, literally. Elliot feels a pang inside his stomach that has nothing to do with the formula that's been dripping through his NG tube. Angela's dad looks like he could never get upset, not with the jeans he's wearing, the flannel shirts, his calm, gravely voice. He's by her side, almost every day. His mom hasn't visited once. Everytime he sees Angela's dad talk to her, rub her arm or give her a careful bear hug as if her bones are made of glass something deep inside of him shatters. He knew if his dad was here he'd do the same, he'd hug him, play games with him, anything to make hospital time pass.

  
But all he has are his mom's words.

  
"You're ugly, Elliot. Do you know that? Don't you dare believe for a second that you're looking good this thin. You look like a corpse."

  
They pass each other on the halls during their little walks, smiling shyly. They both know why they're here. Elliot isn't supposed to walk around, he's on bed rest, but the hospital is short on nursing staff and Elliot has the nurses schedule memorized, he knows exactly when to sneak out. He pretends to be a good patient this time, he really does, because that way the nurses are more lenient on him and don't check up on him that often. It's not like last time or the time before, it really isn't.

  
This is different, this is new, and yet it's all the same.

  
Hospital life. Bright neon lights. Feeding tube formula that looks like vomit. Stepping backwards on the scales so he won't see the number. The smell of antiseptic. Squeaking of nurses' shoes on the lino. Time that just won't pass. Doing 500 piece puzzles because they fit perfectly on the tray you got by your bedside. Playing rummikub with Darlene. He's drawn to the numbers. He doesn't even think about the game, about winning or losing. He stares at the numbers and his mind goes to food immediately, calculating what he would have to eat for each combination of tiles on his rack.

  
Needless to say, Darlene wins most rounds.

  
"Elliot. ELLIOT. Come back to planet Earth, okay?"

  
Elliot stares at the tiles. "I'm fine."

Hospital life. Crying kids, worried parents, and him stuck in the middle. His parents don't worry. One is dead and the other one doesn't care.

  
Elliot can't remember the last time he cried.

  
He's putting the hood of his hoodie up. Angela and her dad can't see him. He can't see them. He can be invisible. He can be a nothing. Yet he can feel Angela's eyes on his body. There's this moment of competition when you have an eating disorder, you're in the acute phase of your illness, and you're meeting someone else with your condition. What's their lowest weight, how skinny are they in comparison to you, how many hospitalizations. You carry your suffering like a trophy you want to hide from everybody else.

  
Her eyes linger on the NG tube taped to Elliot's cheek. On his black jeans that are supposed to be skinny but were not (just like his body, Elliot felt). His clothes are too baggy to be even considered casual. He doesn't look like a teenager who had a growth spurt or someone who wears loose clothing just to be comfortable. He has purple shadows under his eyes and a tube shoved down his throat. He looks like someone who is dying and he knows it.

  
_You're ugly, Elliot. Ugly ugly ugly._

  
He hates the NG tube for keeping him alive. He hates that one of nostrils is clogged, he hates the feeling of having a lump in your throat all day long, as if you are on the perpetual verge of tears. But he isn't. He's all cried out.

  
Empty.

  
He looked like someone whose body is about to give up. At least that's what the nurses whisper-yell when they find out that he's been out of bed, when they see him marching down the corridor, fighting as hard as he can to stay conscious even though there are stars in front of his eyes and his knees have turned into jello. The doctors use bigger words. He knows they want to scare him into obedience but it doesn't work on him. He knows enough about his condition to know what _electrolyte imbalance, potassium deficiency, hypotension, atrophied muscles_ and _heart failure_ mean. He isn't in denial.

  
And he isn't dead, either. Talk about accepting the difficulty of recovering from a severe mental illness when you're forced to stay alive. When you don't know who or what it is you're keeping alive in the first place. Is it you, your self? Is it your body? Or is it the illness you're too afraid to let go?

  
That was his third stay, when he met Angela again. Not different from his previous ones or the ones that followed. He doesn't remember much. Angela does most of his remembering for him. When he's wearing his hoodie over his work shirt to keep warm even though Giddeon is breathing down his neck about the dresscode at Allsafe. When he's disappearing into the men's bathroom a few times too often for everyone to really believe the lie about him having the stomach flu. Ollie thinks he does it to make Giddeon mad simply because he's Elliot, "that weirdo," the scrawny, weird computer nerd who spends way too much time in front of a screen. It takes one look at his trembling, bony hands for Angela to know. To understand. Angela remembers when they watch films and get high. "Back when we were 15" as if it was roadtrip you'd like to reminisce about. Angela smokes weed because it gives you the munchies and thus, by the weird logic of eating disordered thinking, implicit permission to vomit. Elliot snorts morphine because it doesn't give you the munchies, it just makes you numb.

"You had the saddest eyes of anyone I've ever met," Angela says, and the words ring in his ears.

  
"Promise me you're going to try this time?"

  
...

  
He's 16, almost 17.

  
To say he's alive would be a stretch.

  
To say he's in control would be a lie.

  
Control is an illusion.

  
Elliot is tangled up in a web of food, calories, and fat, fat, fat. Self-hatred, shame, guilt, and disgust. His hands, arms, feet, legs, and mind are tied. Life has long stopped feeling real. He can't move, can't breathe. There's no room for him in this life. No space to breathe.

  
This isn't life. This is a life sentence.

  
"You need to make a decision, Elliot," is what his doctor says with worried eyes. It's similar to the look Nayar gave him all those years ago. The look of someone who knows that your life is going to shit, someone who knows and cares and yet they can do nothing about it. "Do you want to live? Or do you want to keep your eating disorder? Because if you keep this up you are going to die. Eating disorders are a slow form of suicide and death will come, sooner or later. What you are doing right now, it'll catch up with you. "

  
Control is an illusion.

  
He might as well be dead or just finally freed from this prison of a body.

  
...

  
The smell of old smoke clings to each room. There's an overflowing ashtray in the kitchen, stale bread on the counter. The fridge is almost empty. There's paint coming from the walls as if the apartment is shedding its skin. They had planned to repaint it, refurnish it too, when they moved in but then life happened. Or rather, death.

  
There's no place like a broken home.

  
"Elliot?"

  
Darlene looks at him with wide eyes. He stops in his movements. He can't bear to look at his sister. They're in the middle of having dinner and he knows the pleading tone in Darlene's voice. This has been going on for a while now. Darlene joins him at breakfast, lunch, and dinner to make him eat. "Don't die on me, Elliot," she whispered once when he sat on a chair in the kitchen, head in his hands in a vain attempt to keep the room from spinning. "Please don't die."

  
Darlene is 12, almost 13.

  
She grew up fast.

  
Elliot stares at this plate. Home fried potatoes. They're all different sizes, the potatoes cut up carelessly. One of the rare meals their mom cooked herself. The potatoes are burnt. This isn't a family dinner but they're not really a family, after all. But this isn't what's on Elliot's mind. He could think about family, about dinner. About what it means to be sitting in this bare kitchen with his sister while his mom prefers the TV for company. But all he can think of is fat. The potatoes are full of fat, Elliot can practically see it jumping from the food onto his skin, but he doesn't want to leave Darlene alone again. Their mom fixed herself a place and went right back to watch TV. There's no one to eat with Darlene and Elliot hates his mom for it, hates himself for it. He's the reason their mom refuses to join them, after all. She loses it every single time she catches him cheating. She used to yell at him, try to force his mouth open, but now she just disappears. Elliot disappared too, he stopped joining them for dinner and no one came to get him, except Darlene who snuck plates of whatever they had into his room, sad little microwave meals she heats up after school. Elliot hid the plates behind his bed. He's got to get rid of them soon, the food is getting mouldy.

  
Not now, not today. He's trying to make an effort, he really is, and with their mom gone it's less pressure. That's why he spent the last 15 minutes sitting at the kitchen table, listening to Darlene complain about her math homework she got spread out across the table. It's strange to see a whole different world, a world in which people go to school and eat and complain about math homework while you're stuck inside your head all day. They go to school and eat, just like that. They can't feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. They can't feel the weight of their own head. The weight, the weight, the weight.

  
Elliot is on his sixth tissue. He's trying to squeeze the fat out of the potatoes and he's still not done. The air between them has turned into glass, into a window, he can hear Darlene going on and on about her teacher, what an asshole, but he can't react. He needs to get the fat out of the potatoes, otherwise he can't be near them.

  
"Elliot?"

  
Elliot turns his head. Her voice tore them apart, the walls he built around himself. He can't pretend not to hear her now. Darlene has her head buried in her math book but he knows she wants to talk. He lets his eyes wander over the table to buy himself time. Darlene's math book looks like it's been through at least ten generations of pupils. There's a notebook with a black and white print at the front and a logo that says "red wheelbarrow." Darlene scrawled her name right under it.  
Elliot takes the book in his hands. "Your handwriting is even worse than mine."

  
"Shut it," Darlene hisses and takes the notebook out of his hands. "Don't touch my stuff. Besides, that's not the point."

  
"Why? You need to take better care of your things, Darlene. That book looks like it's going to fall apart."

  
"It _is_ falling apart because mom doesn't care and we dont have enough money for new things if you hadn't noticed already. I really need new pointe shoes for ballet, it can't feel my feet when I'm dancing. But don't play big brother now. I wanted to ask you something."

  
"Yeah?"

  
"When you're done eating can we watch _Careful Massacre_?"

  
Elliot can feel himself tensing up. He has evening plans and they don't include his sister. They include throwing away food and hacking himself into the hospital's computer system to manipulate his most recent test results. It took a lot of time and energy to find a security hole in the hospital's computer system and his numbers aren't great. Last time his potassium and sodium levels were too low and if he doesn't get into the system and fixes it the doctor will force him back to the hospital.

  
<strike> _You sick little assole your sister needs you and all you think about is yourself_ </strike>

  
<strike> _Elliot you promised you wouldn't go back to the hospital don't leave me alone don't leave me _ </strike>

  
<strike>_The slowest form of suicide_ </strike>

  
"You're too young for that movie, Darlene." This is the end of the conversation, he's trying to tell her but Darlene's never been the type who simply gives up.

  
She leans forward. "Excuse me, but last time I checked I downloaded the movie myself. So?"

  
Elliot's mind travels at a thousand miles per hour. Darlene. Food. Darlene. Hacking. Darlene. Darlene. Darlene. With one swift movement he gets up and throws the potatoes into the trash.

  
"Okay. Give me five minutes to get ready."

  
...

  
"You're bleeding quite a bit, Elliot."

  
Elliot presses a piece of gauze on the back of hand. He's bleeding right through it, just like the last time the nurse took his blood. Prolonged bleeding and bruises. Vitamin K deficiency. Elliot doesn't take his vitamin K as prescribed because it tastes disgusting, like rancid butter, and the nurse knows. He wonders who else does.

  
"This is the longest since you've been out of the hospital in quite a while, isn't it?"

  
The doctor looks at him. Is he supposed to smile as if it's an accomplishment? He knows something is up. The doctor looks concerned. He's got them all printed out, all the results Elliot so carefully rewrote. He even has the reference ranges for potassium and sodium memorized. Potassium, 3.5 mmol/L to 5.1 mmol/L. 135 to 145 mEq/L for sodium. Last time Elliot checked, his potassium was 1,8 3,6, sodium 65 140.

  
Elliot smiles. He's in control. He's in control. But he isn't, not when he's smiling like that, terrified like that of what he has become. A smooth liar, one who sits here and smiles even though his body is failing on him, he's failing to keep his body alive. He's a failure and yet he's smiling because he's the one who's doing all of this. He's in control. He's in control.

  
"I know. Isn't that great?"

  
The doctor doesn't smile back.

  
"Your mother was here last week. She asked us to readmit you because 'because our apartment reeks of vomit and it makes me sick.' Do you have anything to say about that?"

  
Elliot can just about imagine his mom spitting the words out. She'd light a cigarette too, if she was allowed. Or maybe she did. His mother never cares what other people think about her.

  
"Yeah, my sister had the stomach flu, she must have gotten annoyed, I..."

  
Elliot hides his hands inside his sleeves. The doctor isn't buying it, not the lie he's telling right now, not the lie that's sitting right in front of his eyes.

  
"Elliot, is there something you want to tell me?"

  
Well, he could tell him how the vomiting he started brings him to his knees, mentally, physically. He could tell him about his "bulimic episodes," at least that's what Angela calls them. He kept in touch with her. They exchanged phone numbers but, mostly, they email each other back and forth because Elliot hates talking on the phone and Angela's busy with school and ballet. She's been telling him all about the dangers of bulimia in addition to all his body has been through already.

"Your throat and stomach can rupture, did you know that? Imagine suffocating on your own blood."

  
She's been repeating horror scenarios, acting as if she had her shit together. Which she doesn't, she's in the exact same position as he is. But she's the only person who knows exactly what he's going through and she's the only one who asks him how he's going and truly means it.

  
Sometimes they take the train from Jersey into the city, all the way to Cony Island. They sit on the handrails at the beach, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Looking at the ground. There's no water below, nothing to change the world. Just trash. Unwanted things. Things that have no place in other people's lives.

  
Angela is the only person with whom Elliot can be silent and mean it. There are no words for this, for any of it.

  
"I am fighting. I really am." That's how he ended his last email to her.

  
But what? And whom?

  
Vomiting bring him to his knees. Starving is his safe place or at least used to be. It's the one place he returns to when the world becomes too heavy for him to bear, when he needs to make it shring again, make himself small again. Starving is safe, he knows it inside and out, the calories, fat, protein, carbs. But God, he's hungry, just so hungry. The world is overwhelming, it's swallowing him hole and he needs to get rid of it. All of it.

  
Elliot feels like a ghost who's roaming the apartment. He doesn't even try to hide it anymore. His mom simply cranks up the volume of the TV so mask the sound of him retching. Forced laughter from the TV's laugh track echoes in the house as Elliot kneels in front of the toilet, tears running down his cheeks.

  
It started with ice-cream, brioche, muffins, fries, doughnuts, burgers, anything that is soft and can be purged easily. All the things he forbade himself for years. He's seen Angela do it, in the hospital. Her dad would bring her food she asked for and he easily figured it's not for eating like regular people. Just one look at her face was enough – her eyes would get red from bloodvessels that had burst in her eyes - and she always smelled like chewing gum or mint afterwards. She went for long "showers" after each meal but Elliot knew she only turned up the water to hide the sounds. He never told the nurses nor did he ask Angela about it. She, in turn, pretended to look away when he snuck out of bed or threw away food. And just like that, they became accomplices.

  
He starts with food that feels like home. He didn't notice it at first but right through the first bucket of popcorn with M&Ms it hits him. The last time he had this they went to the cinema, him and dad. He wouldn't forgive his dad for having lied about his cancer, for not admitting that he's sick. Elliot feels his stomach tightening. He feels sick all over. He runs to the toilet and starts to vomit immediately.

  
He'll never forgive himself for failing his dad, for failing to protect him from death.

  
He quickly moves on from there. He long passed the threshold of what other people would consider dangerous. He's losing the last bit of self-respect. It's not just food he buys specifically for binges, but the rest, too. Apples. Crackers. Three spoons of dry cereal. Two fries he stole from Darlene's dinner. The apple he had for lunch. He's vomiting multiple times a day now and it's bringing him to his knees, in front of the toilet when he's couhing and wheezing and choking because bits of apple mixed with cereal got stuck in his esophagus and he's panicking. How pathetic it would be to die right now, in front of a vomit-splattered toilet seat. Elliot rams the back of his toothbrush into his throat as he desperately tries to get the food out of his system, begging for it to be finally over.

  
It brings him to his knees. This isn't the calm emptiness of starving yourself. This isn't _I'm safe, I'm safe, nothing can happen to me once I'm thin enough. I'll be safe, I'll be safe, I'm control. I'll be safe._

This is death.

  
He's curled up on the bathroom mat, aching and drop-dead exhausted. He's not sure he got all the food out this time, he had to stop when he started to bleed. It's his throat, he knows. He's been rinsing his mouth and drinking tea but it's never enough. Nothing is ever enough and right in this moment he genuinely hates himself for not being able to finish what he started. Tears of frustration shoot into his eyes. He can hardly remember when he started all of this, when the thought and the feeling of starving for days, weeks, months was fresh and exciting and he loved to see his weight do down. When he finally felt like he was in control. Back when the exhaustion felt good. When you didn't feel the exhausting part, you just felt quiet inside for the first time in years.

  
Now quietness feels like silence. Now silence feels like a loss.

  
He can hardly get up from the bathroom floor. His heart is stuttering, his muscles are trembling. Sobbing makes it worse, it hurts all over, but he can't stop, either. He hates it when he can't hold in his loneliness, when he can't simply starve, deprive himself of all feelings. He's gone too far, again. It'll take days for his throat, for his body to recover from this and he's got a doctor's appointment tomorrow. It's all closing in on him. Last time he vomited he passed out afterwards and hit his head on the toilet seat, it took weeks for the wound to heal. I slipped on the street, nothing to worry. They won't buy the same lie twice. They'll find out. He's sobbing loudly in frustration, in fear. He can't get up and he can't stay here either. He's stuck, paralyzed, terrified, horrified, petrified.

  
What do normal people do when they get this sad?

  
"I think we need to talk, kiddo."

  
Elliot turns his head.

  
"Dad?"

  
And there he is, leaning against the bathtub in his Mr. Robot jacket. Glasses. Not just as a distant memory or a person on the polaroid that's sitting on the top shelf in his room. This is dad. His dad.

  
Slowly, Elliot gets up, grabbing the sink for support. His knees are shaking so hard he can hardly stand. There's blood rushing in his ears. He wipes his mouth with trembling hands before stumbles forward, basically letting his body crash against the body of his dad who pulls him into a bear hug. He even smells the same, like cologne, cigarettes (the good kind), soft, warm wood and that faint smell of the computer store he had for all those years. Elliot used to say it's computers, his dad smells like a computer but that's not true. Computers don't have a smell, not really. His dad smells like home.

  
"I've been watching you for some time now. No rest for the wicked, hm?"

  
They say the voice is the first thing you'll forget if someone you love has died. It's the first thing that leaves. And it's the first thing that comes back.

  
"I will never leave you, again. We're in this to the end."

  
His dad. Not just in the bathroom, anymore. He's in the bedroom, the last thing he sees when he's going to bed. The first thing he sees when he wakes up, like a shadow without a body. Like a shadow that's been tied to Elliot's feet.

  
The memory of an unfinished life materialized into a ghost only Elliot can see.

  
Sometimes his dad is talking to him, laughing about the shitty little apartment. Sometimes he says nothing, just looking around, eyebrows raised. He's watching as Elliot gets changed for school, sighing as he sees Elliot's skeletal body. Elliot tries to ignore him. He doesn't want anyone to see him like this, not even his dead father.

  
He's not sure where all of this is coming from but he doesn't want to let go. If he needs to destroy himself in order to be reunited with his dad he might as well be. Is it a hallucination of a brain that's deprived of the energy it needs to stay functioning? Is it his body way of reminding him that he's dying, actually dying, no matter the many lies he's telling himself? Is this the result of him missing his dad more than he remembers him?

  
He doesn't know. He doesn't care. All he wants is to feel close to his dad, even if it means he's got to come close to his own death. It's the reason why he's starving and binging and vomiting, again and again, making his dad's voice comes back to him. Drawing him near.

Funny how _near_ and _fear_ rhyme as if they were made of the same fabric inside your mind.

  
<strike> _I will never leave you alone again._ </strike>

  
He's going to new extremes. Stealing his mom's dinner (never Darlene's though). Roaming through the trash for food. Throwing up so much he clogged the toilet (for which his mom slapped him in the face). Vomiting into plastic bags he keeps hidden underneath his bed. It's disgusting, he knows that, at least from a logical standpoint. But eating disorders have their own logic and right there and then he craves the feeling of being empty again as much as he craves binging. Just knowing that he can be safe again, even if it comes at a high cost.

  
Elliot just wants to be with his dad.

  
It brings him to his knees, physically. He can fake results from blood tests all the way he wants but his body doesn't lie. His heart palpitations are more noticeable now. Bloated face, swollen hands and feet. Sometimes he can hardly walk, he's stumbling forwards. He's blacking out again, there are tiny stars in front of his eyes as if he's caught in a snow globe. He's close.

  
"Elliot? You're not saying anything."

  
The doctor's face comes into focus again. He could tell him all of this, his fear of dying, his death wish, his dad, his dad, his dad. Yet it all boils down to one simple question. One question, one answer to need to keep his universe in balance.

  
"Do I need to go back to the hospital?"

  
Is he scared of dying? He doesn't know. Here's something he's truly scared of: losing his dad all over again. Eliot's come a long way since his mom screamed at him for bringing sand into the house. He used to believe into his ability to change the world. The world's ability to change himself. Now all he craves is sameness. He doesn't want to change, he can't change. He needs this to keep himself safe. He can't give this up, won't give this up. He can't fail his dad all over again.

  
The doctor sighs and shakes his head. "I looked at your test results and they aren't as bad as I expected. So we're monitoring you as an outpatient for the time being."

  
<strike> _Oh thank god I'm safe we're safe we're safe_ </strike>

  
"And besides," the doctor shuffles his papers before he looks Elliot straight into his eyes, "you know as well as I do that we passed this stadium and it doesn't work. We can have you admitted to the hospital, we can have you sectioned, we can have you treated against your will but it all won't work if _you_ don't want to get better, Elliot. So no, I'm not sending you back to the hospital again. "

  
"I'm fighting. I promise."

  
"I'm sure you do. Just don't give up, okay? I'll see you next week."

...

He's 19 when his mom kicks him out. She found his big barf stash and completely lost it. She found his stash years after other mothers find porn or weed stashes. Elliot doesn't have any other stashes, just things that were once inside of him. He feels naked, inside out, as he hides corner, arms up in front of his face to protect his head while his mom beats him, screeching insults. The words hurt, they hurt so much more now that eachsyllable is accompanied by a kick in his face.

  
Dis-gust-ing  
Pa-thet-ic  
Noth-ing  
Noth-ing  
Noth-ing

  
Over and over again until Darlene jumps inbetween, screaming at her to stop, her voice cracking in all the wrong parts, like a door that's unhinged. Darlene's voice is dripping with a fear raw and ugly as their mom stomps through the apartment, high heels hamering on the cheap lino. She isn't done yet. She's only getting started. She's ripping the clothes out of Elliot's drawer, throwing them on a big pile in front of his bed. His computer goes on that pile too, Elliot whinces as the monitor crashes on the floor. Elliot can feel one of his eyes swell up. Darlene steals an ice pack from the fridge and presses it against his face. "Shush. Don't say anything. Just let her wear herself out."

  
Elliot shrugs. He isn't quite ready for what will come next. One of his eyes is swelling up, there's a cut on his lip, he can taste blood. He can't let her break his bones too. He's got bone loss already and his bones break easily as sticks. They take forever to heal.

  
As the afternoon blends into the evening they start to whisper just like when Darlene planned to run away in third grade. Their mom went out to get cigarettes and this is his only shot. But now it's different. This time Elliot is running away and he isn't coming back, leaving his little sister behind. But even then she's been Darlene all along. Darlene who's tough, who never lets anybody see when her walls are down.

  
"I'll be fine, I can manage her. Tell me when you get to Angela's safe, okay?"

  
"Okay."

The sky is the color of bruises when he makes it to Angela's. He went to her place because he literally had nowhere else to go. His stomach clenches at the thought of Darlene still stuck at home, Elliot is pressing his fingernails into his palms to distract him from the pain. That, and the bruise that's forming around his eye. The thought of Darlene alone at home hurts most. Big brothers aren't supposed to leave their little sisters. Parents aren't supposed to beat or leave their children. This isn't supposed to be and yet it is.

  
Donald Moss opens the door, still in his work uniform, his eyes red-rimmed and blurry. He stayed up the previous night, worrying about the debt they're drowning in, Elliot can tell. His eyes grow wide as they wander linger over his body.

"Elliot, my God, are you okay? Did you get into a fight? Do you need me to drive you to the hospital?"

He doesn't need to tell him what happened, he can guess it by the big, black rucksack on his shoulders. Still, he's trying to fill the silence that's spreading between them with words hastily spoken as if Elliot's pain is a hot potato they're passing back and forth. Don't hold it for too long. You'll burn yourself.

"I'm fine, Mr. Moss, I... can I stay here for the night?"

"Of course, son. Come in."

Elliot steps over the threshold, hesitating for the briefest moment. This isn't a playdate as if he's a childhood friend of Angela's. This isn't a coffee date, either. This isn't a date at all, or a meet up. This is Elliot sleeping at his best friend's place because his mother, his only relative expect Darlene, kicked him until out, this time for good. Elliot stands in the doorway, eyes lingering on the photos on the wall. Angela, her mom. Lots of pictures of a childhood that looks a lot happier in still images. It isn't real, Angela smiling with her milk teeth missing as if she was a regular kid, not a child bruised for life because she watched her mom wither away to nothing right in front of her. Baby-Angela and her mom on a swing, the photo a bit blurry, the colors off, as if the image was a screenshot from a movie instead of a real photograph. None of this is real.

Elliot turns away. The wall is littered with photos, making it look like someone died. Which is true. There are two people in the photos, one of them being dead. The other is alive, still. To Angela's dad it must look like while one half of his life died, the other one continued. Angela continued to live, only to destroy herself years later.

Death comes full circle.

Elliot bites his lips. He feels like an intruder, no, worse: he feels like he'ss never met Angela properly before this. This is a threshold, not just a physical one. She's his childhood friend, true, but she's also his hospital accomplice, someone who's seen him at his sickest, his worst. She's also someone who didn't look away, not once. What will she say if she sees him sitting in her living room? Will she see him like a human being who needs a place to stay, a home, or will she see him like an extension of his illness, her illness?

"Let me take this, this is far too heavy for you."

Her dad's voice rips through his thoughts. Angela's dad takes his rucksack off his shoulders, just like that. He didn't even notice he still carried hit, his muscles too numb to feel any pain.

"S-Sure."

He doesn't know what to do with the kindness he's offered, never does. He can't keep it inside, can't turn it into the intrinsic will that he's a good person inside. He can't keep anything down these days.

"Do you want a cup of coffee? Tea? Water?"

He doesn't really know Angela's dad but he knows him, obviously. Knows him and all his ways. He's got the kindness not to offer him food right on the spot, not to make his even more embarrassing and uncomfortable than it already is. He's still got kindness in himself, even after Evil Corp killed his wife and destroyed their lives. Even after he watched his daughter being on the brink of death. He hasn't turned hard and cold like his mom. He hasn't put walls around himself like Darlene. He hasn't gone crazy like him, Elliot. Right there and then, Elliot hates Evil Corp even more than he used to. For all the pain they put their families through. For all the pain they caused, and yet Evil Corp is doing just dandy.  
Elliot sinks into the sofa and wraps his hands around a steaming mug of tea. He can't drink it, he hasn't made it himself, he doesn't know the brand. It's supposed to be Earl Grey but he needs to know the specific brand, some still have 0.5 or 1 kcal per bag for whatever reason. He's sitting here, eyes swelled shut, homeless, and worries about a teabag.A world shrunk to a steaming cup that's too scary right now. But the warmth is good, it transmits from the teacup to his fingers and to the rest of his body and he smiles, for the first time ever, truly meaning it.

Angela's dad doesn't smile back.

"You're so thin, Elliot. You're worrying me. I know it was bad from what Angela told me but seeing you like this... I am shocked, to be honest. Shocked. Does your mom know you're here?"

The smile washes off Elliot's face. Before he can fabricate a lie elaborate enough to justify his existence in this living room the front door slams shut.

"Hi, dad! I just dropped by the supermarket and... oh, hi Elliot! I wasn't expecting you!"

Angela comes into the living room, bringing autumn air and smoke with her. She started smoking again even though she promised she'd quit. Appetite suppressant. Her eyes grow wide as she sees his face and rucksack.

"Did your mom kick you out?"

Elliot nods, too ashamed to look up. He can't exist in this space, can't breathe. Carpet on the floor. Bookshelves. Blankets, pillows. Decoration. Dimmed lights. Leather sofa. Comfortable chairs. This is where people listen to each other. This is where they've got stories to tell. This is a home where people say grace before they eat. This is a home where people actually eat. This is a home where people come home and tell each other about their day. This is a home where you don't have to be scared, you don't have to be afraid anymore. This is a home, not a place where mothers beat their children black and blue.

He shoots Angela a look. This is a home, this is homely. He could eat here. Maybe. Why did she stop eating? She has her reasons.

We all do.

...

Staying at Angela's turned from days into weeks. He's wrapped in soft blankets and a silence that's forgiving for once. Angela and her dad don't ask questions. They know what happened and offer him extra blankets to sleep. Hot water bottles. He's even allowed to take hot showers as long as he wants. Simple acts of kindness that make Elliot's heart beat faster. That make him double-check every lock at night, just to make sure his mom isn't coming for him.

Just to be in control.

Just to be safe.

A word he's rediscovering, a feeling. Just like the silene he's living with. Without the constant murmur of the TV in the background, the constant hammering of high heels on the cheap lino in the kitchen gone something new finds its way into his life, something soft, something sweet.  
He rediscovers safety.

He spends his days with Angela. He rediscovers other sides of her too, sides of her personality that had been clouded by her eating disorder. Her love for Starbucks and the way she rolls her eyes when Elliot lectures her about corporate greed. Her passion about ballet. Once, while they were all in the living room, Angela's dad reading the newspaper, Elliot bent over the family laptop to fix a problem, Elliot saw the shoes lined up in front of Angela.

"My sister likes ballet, too."

The sentence is out before he can stop himself. Thinking about Darlene is painful, and speaking her name brings back a gush of memories. Darlene practicing ballet dance moves in the kitchen, pirouettes, even though the room is too small and Darlene navigates as gracefully as she can around overflowing ashtrays. Elliot trying his hardest not too small but failing.

They haven't talked since he moved in with Angela's, only texted a few times. I'm good dude, you don't have to worry about me. Darlene's keeping the walls up all around her and for the first time, that includes him.

"Really? Does she dance?"

"Yeah, she's taking classes in the city..."

He lets himself be swept away by Angela's lecture on ballet, a welcome distraction from the pain of Darlene's disappearance. Elliot thought that he, growing up with Darlene, knew everything there is to know about dancing but turns out there is more. Angela shows him how to break in pointe shoes, how to stretch your muscles correctly. Elliot watches something in Angela lit up as she talks about dancing, about moving her body in order to forget that she has a body.

"I'm cold, so whatever," Angela murmurs as she lays out all her leg warmers, all the extra layers of clothing. Elliot hides his hands in the sleeves of his hoodie, his way of biting his tongue.  


...

Sometimes they get high and watch _Back to the Future II_. Sometimes they just sit together and listen to music on Angela's iPod. They're sharing earphones, one earbud for each of them.

It's the same song, over and over again.

_And we could run away_  
_Before the light of day_  
_You know we always could_  
_The mountains say, the mountains say_  
  
And just like that they're fifteen again, looking at each other from a distance, in a hospital hallway.

_And we could run away_  
_You know we always could_

...  


He's sticking to soup and the nutritional shakes he knows from the hospital. His doctor suggested them multiple times but his mom wouldn't pay for them "because I might as well flush the money down the toilet." Elliot hasn't vomited once since he's moved in with Angela. The shakes aren't great, they're the wrong flavor, vanilla is the only thing Elliot can tolerate, and they look revolting but Elliot knows exactly what's in them. He isn't drinking enough of them to gain weight but he's maintaining, thanks to a ruined metabolism and a body that's clinging to life.

Angela's dad handles his body with the delicacy of an atomic bomb. Sometimes his hands touch the air when he's speaking to Elliot as if he needs to hold on to something, something more substantial than skin and bones. Sometimes he looks at Elliot from the corners of his eyes and when he thinks Elliot can't see him he wipes his eyes with the back of his hands.

Elliot wonders how much Angela has told him.

Elliot wakes up and has breakfast with Angela and her dad in the sunshine. He sits in front a bowl of porridge, the same Angela has. His heart is hammering, his entire body is nerves, electric storms inside his brain, heart, lungs. He feels as if he's going to war. He's fighting. Birds chirp in the background. The sun's peeking from behind the trees that rustle in the backyard. He could eat here, maybe. This is homely. But this isn't home. This man who calls him "son" and gives him a second blanket to sleep with at night "because you're cold, Elliot, I can see it" isn't his dad. This isn't his mother who smiles from the photographs.

His dad is gone again. Elliot hasn't died, he's still alive, and his dad is gone again.

He goes to sleep after breakfast and wakes up to an empty house. To the rain drumming against his bones.

Silence found him again, and loss.

...

He can’t pretend not to hear Angela cry at night, sobbing in a language that has yet to be invented.

In contrast to life, death doesn’t expire. Grief carries on. Memories pass across generations like genes. His dad never knew his dad. A petty thief, as he called him. Elliot doesn’t feel like he really knows his dad beyond the uniforms he wore for work every day. First for Evil Corp. Then for the store. Mr. Robot. His dad turned first into photograph, then into an image, corrupted data inside his mind, before he becomes a word that doesn’t mean anything anymore.

He wonders what will be left when he’s gone. Memory, blank as bones.

...

He's in his twenties when he finally moves into his first apartment after living at Angela's, further hospital admissions, and, finally, a halfway house for young adults with chronic eating disorders. He moved into an apartment, a proper one, a real place, right in Chinatown in the city. Not the guest room in Angela's house. Not a hospital room that holds nothing, not even his name. Not a bit of floor on a stranger's bedroom. Not a bit of street under a bridge, in the winter, at night, when you're shivering, not because you're cold, but because you're fearing for your life.

A real place. A real apartment that belongs to him, him who doesn't feel real.

He started working as a tech, basically putting all his hacker knowledge into something that gets him away from Jersey. The novelty of it all hasn't worn off and he's still clinging on to safety. To shakes and soup. To silence and loss.  
His dad still hasn't come back yet. He's vanished. Elliot wakes up in the morning and the first thing he searches for is that familiar appearance at the end of his bed. But there's nothing. No one. Just him and the first traces of New York morning light, mixed with the traffic and shouting outside.

Elliot tries everything. Binging and vomiting so much he passes out. Vomiting and hating himself so much he smashes the bathroom mirror. Going without food for days on end.

There's nothing. Just him, surrounded by a fake leather couch and an old stove Angela's dad donated from his basement along with other pieces of furniture he didn't want anymore. The stove doesn't fit in with the rest of his kitchen, it's white, and there are still some stains from what looks like centuries ago. Angela's dad says it works, he's tested it, and Elliot smiled in response. He's got to be thankful, he knows, but truth be told he doesn't care. He isn't planning on using the stove anyway.

He wants this place to feel real.

He just wants his dad to come back.

...  


"You live in a bad neighborhood, do you know that?" is the first thing Angela said when she helped him move. She got a place to study at the Brooklyn Institute of Technology. She's moving too, her dad rented out a truck for all her boxes to be moved to a room at student accommodation.

For Elliot it was just one box, the box his computer came in. That and a garbage bag full of clothes.

He's travelling light.

_You live in a bad neighborhood_ means_ I am worried about you_. He's been friends with Angela long enough to understand what she means. He doesn't go for runs like she does, he doesn't have the strength and his bones are all messed up. He takes long walks around the neighborhood instead, at 3AM when the despair of spending yet another night alone in bed keeps him wide awake.

"You and your walks,"

Angela sighs as she looks around. Vera's car is parked outside, blasting music. They don't even try to hide their guns. Elliot shrugs. He doesn't care. He'd rather be dead than fat.

It's in a bad neighborhood, that's the first thing Angela said. She's still coming over almost every week.

...

Angela is the only one that knows what Elliot's silence means. She is the only one who still drops by and knocks on his door even when he isn't answering, even when he hasn't left the apartment in weeks. She's the only one who stands underneath his window and calls. As in Romeo and Juliet they could say if they wanted to be romantic. "I don't want you to hurt yourself, okay?!" is what Angela yells instead because this isn't about being romantic, this is about surviving.

Angela is the only one who can walk him through a bowl of cereal when food, when the world becomes too much. Elliot feels oddly safe crying into bowl of cereal. He used to feel pathetic, he used to hate himself for this but together with Angela it feels real. It feels true. They eat and cry and remember the bits of their childhood that aren't tainted by death. Darlene riding her scooter in front of their house and singing Frère Jacques. Angela getting guinea pigs for her birthday and naming them after Harry Potter characters. They cry until it sounds like laughter. They laugh until it sounds they're crying.

They remember the tender parts tenderly.

It's the hopeful moments that scare him the most. Because of what's inside of him. His eating disorder. His daemon. That voice inside the back of his head that never stops, never sleeps. That's seducing, manipulating, owning him.

...

He's somewhere in his twenties and sectioned again. Not for for his eating disorder this time but for thrashing all the servers at work. They don't send him to a med-peds ward or the teen psych ward this time but to a closed psych ward for adults. The hospital band is too big for his wrist. The psychiatrist doesn't remember his name. _That's okay_, Elliot wants to say, _I tend to forget who I am, too_. But he can't speak, he's drugged up on whatever was in that syringe they stuck in his butt while he was kicking and screaming to be led out. Now it's all white. White walls, white floor. The static vanished into dead air, just like the radio does when there's nothing to receive, to send out anymore.

A room as still as a photograph.

"It's official, I'm crazy" is what he says to Darlene who came back. Not for ballet, not for her new boyfriend Cisco, but for him as soon as he got out. In Halloween, just in time. Boots, shorts, a jacket, and a purple rucksack. It's like no time has passed at all. She's still Darlene. He's still her brother.

Darlene looks at him with wide eyes. "Do you know who's crazy? Those wallstreet psychos."

And, after a short pause,

"Now can we watch _Careful Massacre_?"

The film is over too soon. Elliot is so tired he forgot he's supposed to eat something for dinner. And for lunch. And for breakfast. He stares at the clock. 11.30 PM. Too late. Tomorrow, he'll try. Tomorrow is a fresh start.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

He goes to bed. Sleeping on the small couch leaves you with a horrible stiff neck, he learned that the hard way. Darlene follows, not even hesitating for a moment.

"Okay, this is feels weird because we're not kids anymore but I don't care. You're not sleeping alone tonight, I don't want you to do something stupid and hurt yourself."

Darlene crawls under the covers.

"Geez, you're an iceblock. Are you ever not cold?"

Elliot shakes his head in the dark but of course, Darlene can't see him.

...

  
It's their way of saying I love you. I miss you. I care about you. Other siblings punch each other on or steal each other's food.

  
They don't punch each other. They don't steal food. They sit together and cry together. On Elliot's faux leather couch. On the beach when the tide is way out and only the trash is left behind. They sit and cry. They remember their childhood for all the wrong parts, the hardest parts.

  
They miss it for the right reasons.

  
...

He's 28 when Angela gets him a job at Allsafe. It pays the bills, actually a lot better than the jobs he previously had and he already hates himself. He can't possibly hate himself more, even if he works for a company he despises.

He can't possibly begin to describe the silence that settled deep inside him when Angela, his best friend, disappeared. No, she's still there, he's seeing her every day at work but it's different now. She got together with Ollie from work and they're a _proper couple_ now. They moved in together. They go to the gym together. They go to lunch. They have dinner with other couples, just like normal people. He wonders what Angela told Ollie about him. How they met. Sometimes they invite Elliot, but only after everyone else bailed. Elliot knows this. Not from their emails this time, but the way Angela looked down while Ollie spoke.

She has always been a shitty liar.

And it's just steaks, it's $29, it's an evening he could spent lying to himself it's all good, he's good, he's normal now. He could take a selfie and post in on Instagram, showing the world that he's living a normal, bug-, eating disorder free life from now on even though he'll vomit that steak into the toilet and feels guilty. Not about the money he wasted but about the meat he couldn't get out. Who knows how much food is left in your stomach.

It's in moments like this when Elliot can feel his dad around, not as a distant memory, not as a deathwish, but as someone who's about to come back into his life.

...

It's October. It's getting colder. Elliot sees other people, other families taking long walks in the park. They meet up to drink tea and chat.

Elliot doesn't admire the way the leaves change color, he doesn't enjoy the smell of autumn. All he can see, feel, and fear is the cold. He's going to have the heater on full blast again even though his utility bill will be through the roof. He's going to get burns from pressing hot water bottles against his stomach until the skin bruises and he can't feel anything anymore. It's never warm, not when your body lacks the fat it needs to survive.

With the cold come the blue nails, blue lips. Once he shivered so hard he collapsed on the subway and people just walked past.

With the cold comes the pain deep inside his bones. Years of starvation and vomiting destroyed his bone densitity. "You have the bones of a 50 year old menopausal woman," a doctor said to him once. Pain will become his whole world again, his reality when he's curled up on the floor of his apartment, lacking the strength to lift himself up.

It's going to get cold.

...  


He watches tea lea es bleed into hot water and imagined his body to do the same. To dissolve into nothingness.

He should have gone to Angela’s birthday party.

Nothing says weirdo more than hacking people, _spying on them,_ like Ollie said.

Nothing says I’m lonely more than staying at home while everyone else is out.  


...

He always remembers the words of Leon, a nurse he met at a clinic. Well, they didn't really meet. Leon was the nurse who was on suicide watch while he was sectioned again. His words echo inside Elliot's mind when he collapses in the bathroom, when he hacks everyone around him and still feels empty. When he misses his dad.

"Existence can be beautiful or it can be ugly. But that's _on you_."

Elliot hacked Leon right when the hospital threw him out, when the involuntary psychiatric hold came to an end. Leon has a whole Youtube channel devoted to his favorite TV show, _Seinfeld_. He's uploading vlogs, elaborate discussions of each episode, discussions he's having with himself in a diner. The show is really fucking with him, Elliot can see that, but seeing Leon talk about _Seinfeld_ makes him smile, just like seeing Angela talk about ballet or Darlene dancing makes him smile. They get this glimmer in their eyes, talking about something they're truly passionate about.

They're making existence beautiful.

...

It's cold when Flipper comes into his life. Little paws skittering across the floor, a noise that makes Elliot smile no matter how shitty he feels. A little furry ball of warmth, cuddling up to him at night when Elliot is wide awake.

...

"I had fries today. On the way here."

Elliot grins, the lie coming out of his mouth smoothly. Fries. As if.

Krista looks at him with stern eyes, her voice giving away her disappointment.

"You're hiding again, Elliot. This is not the place and time to talk about food. Let's talk about _you. _Did you go to Angela's birthday party?"

...

Temperatures dropped and so did Elliot's weight. Again.

He stopped heating his apartment. Darlene complains about it, perpetually. Angela complains about it. Even Shayla, his neighbor who came into his life like a dream, not caring about what he wasn't and was, about his past, about all the things he couldn't be. She talks to him as if none of this matters. Being normal. Being crazy. Seeing your dead father stand over there, in the corner. Screaming at him, screaming at yourself. Taking back control, again and again.

He can't afford to heat his apartment, not on his shitty tech salary at Allsafe. At least that's what he tells them. Another lie. Giddeon just gave him a rise, he could afford all the heaters in the world, but being cold burns calories. And he's got Flipper, she cuddles up to him every night.

Krista talks about repeating patterns. His mom used to scream at him and Darlene about the utility bill, about how _money is in scarce supply in this house_ and _do you have any idea what that costs._ Last time he got money back from the utility bill.

His flat remains cold.

...

He starts to write a diary. Talking to an imaginary friend. Telling them the things he can't tell himself even though writing means thinking, means talking, means getting shot by the ghost of his dead father who's come back, an everlooming presence. He's shooting Elliot In the head, again and again. Does this mean something, anything? A metaphor for fighting something that's not only a disorder but a part of yourself?

Or is it simply him missing his dad?

_I'm fighting, I'm fighting._

But whom? And what?

...

He's 28. He's about to start the largest revolution the world has ever seen.

He'll change the world.

The world will change him.

Elliot will lose Shayla and the nightmares, the guilt about her death will haunt him forever.

Angela will blow her brains out. It'll be her eating disorder that will drive her to suicide. Elliot won't have words for the pain that will follow, won't have words for years to come.

Darlene will lose Cisco and the pain will drive her to snorting coke, snorting it until she collapses screaming and crying.

They will lose their mother and they will be gutted about her death even though neither won't admit it.

But they don't know that yet.

Right now, Elliot stares at the pages of his diary as if by making himself read his words over and over again he can change the world.

_I'm asking you to have hope for me. _

_Please, have hope. _  



End file.
